Here's a fun little Friday afternoon news bomb for everyone. According to Wall Street Journal reporter Ben Fritz, Netflix and Nintendo are working together on a new live action television series based on the latter's Legend of Zelda franchise. The report, which comes via a source "familiar with the matter," is intended to be a Game of Thrones style series, albeit with a more family friendly tone.

This apparent partnership between the online streaming giant and Zelda maker is in the very early stages. No writers have been hired for the project yet, and the story cautions that any number of hurdles still need to be cleared before the series reaches the production stage. Should it get to that stage, it would be the first officially sanctioned episodic Legend of Zelda series since the 1989 animated show, which lasted just 13 episodes.

Regardless of whether or not this show comes to fruition, it's interesting to hear rumblings that Nintendo is even considering anything like this. Is a Legend of Zelda series officially produced in conjunction with Nintendo something you'd be into? If so, what would you want to see out of it? I have my own ideas. Well, one idea, anyway. It's actually just the concept of this video spaced out over seven seasons.

You'd watch that, right? Of course you would.

They should make an FMV Zelda game...wait, never mind...

This seems like a terrible idea.

I..don't know how to respond to this. It could be great, and it could also be horrible.

Why? of all the things...

I definitely would!!

Yes Please!

If they just go all-out and make this as '80s as possible, it could work

I'm pretty sure they say "like Game of Thrones" about every new TV show these days.

Honestly, the most interesting thing about this is that it reaffirms the notion that Game of Thrones has supplanted The Lord of the Rings as the premier fantasy cultural touchstone.

Ha!

that commercial is fantastic.

it CANNOT BE TOPPED

Well it could be a interesting show if they manage to do it right. But I never really thought about them doing a live action Zelda TV show so I'm not quite sure how they could do this the right way.

Oh dear God no.

The only question is, just how laughable and horrendous is this going to be?

They should just make Zelda into a freaking anime series already. Zelda has more in common with anime than it does traditional fantasy. Superimposing traditional fantasy over the Zelda aesthetic is just a disaster waiting to happen.

@kasaioni said:

In response:

Oh burn, etc. ;)

@young_scott: I feel like each of them should be saying what the other is, this is backwards.

@top8gamer: That's awesome. Like I said in another thread on this topic, they need to get a girl to play as Link. It's just like how they always get a girl to play as Peter Pan on stage. Because of the character design, the youthfulness is better portrayed by an actress than a man. This could be cool.

"Michael Cera IS The Legend of Zelda."

Whaaaat?! I mean, this has tremendous potential to be terrible, but if they pull it off, I'd be thrilled.

I'm embrace this news, if only because if it's done even halfway decently well, the cringeworthy self-serious fan films will stop materializing.

no "excuuuuuse me princess"pun in the title. Your slipping Alex.

I look forward to laughing at the disappointment. Or being surprised. Either works for me.

I would bet on this working. Not straight up but the odds wouldn't need to be outrageous.

@young_scott: and yet I dont know if Brad is saying that just to rile Dan up!

Well thats... unexpected.

Could be cool.

I can kinda imagine this show becoming a somewhat children's anthology series. Keep certain focal points of the story the same like Zelda, Link, and Triforce but tell a different story with each new season. Once the season wraps up fire everyone and bring in new actors, directors, and writers to keep the show fresh.

I hope it is a modern re-imagining of the series which casts high school kids in the roles.

Oh wait. no.

When I was 12 I wanted nothing more than for this to be a reality. Now? Not so much.

Animation would've been the way to go, not live-action. Something tonally along the lines of Avatar: The Last Airbender, or How to Train Your Dragon is absolutely appropriate for the Zelda series. TV is the way to go, but live-action creates a lot of challenges.

so, will each episode be exactly the same with except with better graphics?

This will be cringe worthy

So, I guess that one of two things has to happen:

Nintendo finally allows Link to speak again, or this show does not star Link and thus nobody cares about it at all.

Imagine live-action Water Temple. That's some red-wedding type shit there.

I'd probably watch if Harvey Fierstein played Link.

Ellen Page should be Link

I can't imagine this begin any good...

But then I can't imagine the World of Warcraft movie being good and that gets made...

Maybe IF the World of Warcraft movie moves combat and fighting and war and 'the world is in peril' to the background it could actually tell an interesting good story that could take place in that world, but given the videogame nature and licensed movie history AND it has war in the name I guess it'll be all about CGI fights that I could not care less about.

ew.

That commercial is all kinds of amazing!

I really hope this is the start of Nintendo finally leveraging it's IP into wider media. It's been 30 years since the Mario Bros movie, they can't keep grieving forever.

I've got confidence in Netflix but not sure what weird agreements I'll need to subject my streaming device in order to watch an episode... "Please Remove the current disk, unplug your Kinect, and delete the following titles from your console to accept these terms"

/sarcasm... sorta

Link better not talk. He needs to just show up, solve problems, kill monsters, jack all the treasure in sight, smile and walk out.

We came to the same conclusion, Alex.

It's the one that's on TV right now. Of course it's the one that people will refer to in press pitches. The sort of thing you're talking about will take a few more years to be sure of.

I agree, it does BUT this is Netflix we're talking about and it seems like they're known for a certain level of quality at this point...if anyone can pull it off its either them or HBO.

So I don't watch Game of Thrones and I've never finished a Zelda game to completion. But I feel like the way and the kind of stories those two things tell are so vastly different this kind of narrative is going to feel real forced and out of place for Zelda fans. I would imagine Link would have to talk in a GoT style show.

After the initial shock, I'm eager to see Netflix and Nintendo try. I would've loved an animated series, hand-drawn or full CG, but I'm open to an attempt at live action.

Stop.